My story begins nearly 61 years ago. My mother, brought up in a strictly non-traditional Brahmin meat eating household, married my father and settled in a very overtly vegetarian Gujarat. Not having a liking or even acquaintance with dudhi, parval, tindola and the likes, the fare offered by the Sarabhai matriarch saw to it that she lost twenty pounds in the first months of her marriage. And worse, on drives through the city with varied Sarabhai nieces and nephews she was asked whenever passing a stray head of cattle on the streets, “Mami do you feel like eating that?” Amma very quickly became vegetarian.

A French friend, coming to settle in Ahmedabad close to thirty five years later and needing housing was first always asked “Are you a vegetarian?” He tried the truth for a few days and then, desperate as his family was due to arrive, resorted to saying “Yes”. He found an apartment in a nice mixed neighbourhood made up of Bengali, Kashmiri, Punjabi and Gujarati families. Getting desperate for eggs or fish every once in a while, he would stay up late in the night and dig a hole in the surrounding plot to bury the remains. Till a friendly dog dug up the delicious remains and put an end to their welcome in the apartment building.

About ten years ago, we had a lighting technician, a Gujarati Patel, move from Parel in Mumbai to Ahmedabad, to work at Darpana. He found housing in an all Patel neighbourhood somewhere in the old city. Every morning at 4 a.m his wife would have to get up to buy the family's chicken, allegedly unbeknownst to her neighbours from the vendor who came to the street. Except that every wife in the surrounding houses did the same. Each household knew that every one of them bought chicken this way, but the pretence of vegetarianism continued. As long as everyone was in the same pact of lies, it was fine, the pretense could be kept up as could the scoffing at open meat eaters.

And then there was the worthy elderly gentleman who used to belong to my mother's prayer circle. He epitomized, to my very young eyes, “purity”; starched white kurta and dhoti, Gandhi cap, tilak. Beautiful resonant voice, reciting slokas flawlessly. Butter wouldn't melt in his mouth, he was so pure. Till I saw him at the Sea Lounge, beer in one hand, the other thrown casually over a young woman certainly not his daughter and, horror of horrors, a plate of chicken in front of him.

Recently an article in a daily gave figures of the growth in the demand for chicken and eggs in the city. It outstrips the growth of demand of most things like milk or butter or soya nuggets. And yet Ahmedabad even today remains a city where one is asked for proof of vegetarianism before being allowed into housing – and restaurants which serve eggs or meat are not frequented by “good” families (individuals from the same families can come there with their friends, but never en famille).

Why do we need to hide something as inconsequential as food preferences? Why do we lie about this to our nearest and dearest? Respect, I am often told. What kind of respect is this that involves falsehood? Is lying not greater disrespect? Hiding the fact that most people in the city drink is understandable because of the prohibition; though new housing advertisements are brash enough recently to include the word “bar” as an addition to the 3 BHK formula. But why are we still coy about chicken eating? Just like some brave and honest people who started the Malt March, perhaps it is time for those who wish to eat chicken openly to start a Chicken Gunya – chickens multiply chapter.